Fernando Sansò

Professor emeritus of Politecnico di Milano

"Essential timeline: 1967, degree in physics cum laude; 1979, Bomford award of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG); 1981-2013, full professor of Geodesy at DICA; 1982-1992, director of the then Institute of Topography of the Instituto Politecnico; 1986, Feltrinelli award of the Accademia dei Lincei and subsequent appointment as corresponding member; president of the IAG and then honorary president; 2002, honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen; 2004-2012 coordinator of the PhD in Geodesy and Geomatics at the Politecnico; 2004 member of the Royal Astronomical Society; 2007, national member of the Accademia dei Lincei; 2008, honorary doctorate from the University of Thessaloniki; 2009, honorary doctorate from the University of Stuttgart; 2012, founder and president of the Politecnico spin-off 'Geomatics Research and Development'.

Publications: author of over 400 scientific papers; author of 9 books in Italian and 5 books in English (ed. Springer Vertlag); editor of 6 volumes of Lecture Notes in the IAG series; editor of 9 Proceedings of the IAG Symposia; editor of 3 special issues of the Rendiconti dell'Accademia dei Lincei.

Areas of research:

• determining and interpreting the gravitational field: founding of the International Geoid Service; Bayesian approach to the interpretation of potential fields;
• elliptic boundary problems: linear and non-linear Molodensky problem; oblique derivative free boundary problems;
• Generalised Random Fields (RF) theory: estimation and prediction of RF applied to the gravitational field, collocation theory;
• Satellite geodesy: ESA's Goce project; space-wise approach to satellite data analysis,
• positioning: definition of global and local reference systems; static and dynamic analysis of GNSS data; use of GNSS for structure and ground monitoring"

[career highlights kindly provided by professor Sansò in 2023]